Didn’t know that, by revealing this to her, I was showing her my trust.
Jail time was nothing to what they’d fling at me if they saw what I had in here.
I cleared my throat, oddly nervous yet excited too, because I knew she’d get it. Before, I didn’t think she would. But knowing who she was, what she was, I knew this would thrill her even if she wanted to cut me for it too.
Shooting her a glance, I saw from her scowl she was peeved, but from the way she gnawed on her cheek, I could tell she was nervous too. She gulped when the wall, where the seams were so airtight not even a fucking sniffer dog would be able to sense them, flipped and retracted inwards. Within seconds, a cavity opened up, exposing a silver vault.
Her mouth had rounded into a perfect circle that I remembered stuffing with my dick, and she rasped, “What the fuck, Dec? You turn into Richie goddamn Rich on me?”
My lips twisted. “The Macauley Culkin version? Hell, yeah.”
She snorted but folded her arms over her chest. This time, her excitement was real.
She knew this level of security was for something hardcore. Something epic.
She wasn’t wrong.
The door to the safe was about ten by eight feet. It was made so that once it was open and fully activated, it was like a wall. On nights when I was alone, which I always was because no bitch ever slept here, I’d open it up and stare at my bounty.
I pressed my hand to the sensor, which opened up the initial lock. Then, I pressed my chin to the silver ledge, and let the device scan my retinas. Once that was done, I had to key in a code, and she murmured, “Christ. This is heavy duty, Dec.”
I didn’t say anything, just took a step back.
There was a buzzing noise as my details were registered, and then a heavy clanking as the doors began to retract, pulling inward before pushing out.
From behind fifteen layers of titanium, that not even a fucking bomb could destroy, three portraits tunneled out on mechanized shelving.
When she took them in, she automatically took a step back.
The two on either side of the central piece were magnificent.
But the one in the middle?
I knew why she flopped backward, not stopping until she was all arms and legs, barreling onto my unmade bed.
“Felt that way the first time I saw it too,” I commented.
She gulped, her mouth working still, and I decided to let her take in the glory that, even though its majesty was astronomical, didn’t compare to the beauty that had taken my breath away when I was sixteen fucking years old.
Her.
Hobbling over to the door just in case Seamus decided to get his ass out of the shower sometime this century, I closed it, then turned and saw she’d moved with the silence of a stalking panther and was peering at it. So close that her breath was touching the paint.
It was a testament to what I felt for her that I didn’t bark at her to back the fuck away.
Behind the safe’s walls, for eighteen hours a day, the paintings were in a protected environment. Everything in this room was controlled to protect the oils from the humidity and the temperature. Didn’t matter if it was high summer or the dead of winter, it was always seventy degrees Fahrenheit, and the humidity was at a constant fifty-four percent.
Exhausted even though I was excited too, I leaned against the door, then asked her, “You know when I was Seamus’s age, I’d been in the Points for two years, don’t you?”
When she didn’t answer, I knew she was as taken with the pieces as me.
That was to my good fortune.
If she understood, then maybe she’d get why I’d done what I had. Why I allowed myself to be blackmailed.
“It’s real.” She shook her head a little blindly. “It’s actually real.”
“Yeah. It is. The others are too.” That had her dazedly turning to me, and whispering, “There is no way in fuck that I’m looking at a couple hundred million on the wall, Dec. Please, God, tell me I’m having some kind of psychotic episode.”
My lips twitched. “No psychotic episode. You are.”
Another gulp. “That’s a Van Gogh.”
“Sure is.”
She raised a hand and covered her face. “And a Flinck.”
“Yep.”
She peeked at me through her fingers. “And the lost Vermeer.”
Because this was what a lady boner looked like, I smirked at her. “The Concert.”
When I confirmed what she’d already figured out, she twisted to look at the wall and shook her head. Shook it some more. Another time. Then whispered, “I think I have water in my ears.”
I said nothing, amused and touched and relieved and excited all at the same time.
She got it.
She fucking got it.
With my back to the door, I continued watching Aela as she jerked back and took in the majesty of my horde. Then, when she finally turned to me, something inside me settled so beautifully, so fucking wondrously, when I saw her eyes.
When I saw her tears.
She hurled herself at me. At first, I thought she was going to hit me, that was how violent her response was, but instead, she sobbed. She huddled into my chest, crying loudly like I’d hit her, then she did the damnedest thing.
She leaned up on tiptoe, slipped her hands around my cheeks, and hauled my head down. When our lips collided, she ate at my mouth with the true hunger of someone who understood what she’d looked at. Who knew what it felt like to covet.
Who knew what hunger and need for something insane was.
Her tongue thrust into my mouth, tasting of salt and coffee and mint. She tasted, even more importantly, like mine. Like she’d never been parted from me. Like the last time we kissed was yesterday.
She moaned, her body writhing against mine as she used her hands to guide my head, and even though I was in no state to even be dealing with a boner, never mind this attack, did I look fucking stupid?
This was Aela.
Sweet fuck.
This. Was. Aela.
Her pussy was meant for my dick, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t know how many cocks had been inside her, but mine was the first to get a taste of that sweet cunt. Me. No fucker else. And I’d be the goddamn last.
The thought sent need surging through me, and when her hips ground into mine, her sweet gasp as she rocked her hips, digging her belly into me, I released a low growl as I pulled back, this time tipping her head up so I could kiss her throat. So I could mark her there.
She arched her neck, letting me have my way, accepting my need like she’d known I never could allow before. I’d marked her tits, her thighs, her stomach. Everywhere but where I wanted.
Now, I had a say in this, and I went on the rampage, sucking hard, not stopping until the love bite would stick around for days in the aftermath, long enough for her to whine about needing to plaster it with foundation every damn day.
Not stopping until I had to slip my thigh between hers, even though it fucked with my balance, so I could let her ride me. Her cunt ground down against my leg, and she rocked there, hard. Heavy. I could feel her heat through the denim of her jeans, making me wish she was wearing yoga pants so I’d feel her sweet cream against my skin because I was in a pair of basketball shorts.
When she moved faster, the pace suddenly surging upward, I moved back to her lips, thrusting my tongue into her mouth this time as I let her reach a peak I’d never anticipated her finding this afternoon.
Not after our discussion.
Her high-pitched moans turned more frantic, more frenetic, until she stiffened, her body on the knife’s edge, and she let out a long cry that I swallowed.
As she cascaded back toward the ground, I carried on kissing her, nipping at her lips, tasting her, supping from her, well aware that when she realized what she’d done, she’d pull away. Get defensive. Back off.
I took advantage of the moment, enjoyed the feel of her against my cock, and held her close.
; It had been too fucking long since I’d had this. Since I’d even felt anything for a bitch. Aela was the exact opposite though.
She wasn’t a slut, a side piece, or a mistress.
She was mine. Born to be fucking mine.
When she pulled back, I almost sighed with disappointment, then she shocked me again by resting her head against my chest and whispering, “I did not mean to do that.”
My grin was cocky, but she wouldn’t know that because she couldn’t see it. “I’d never have guessed,” I rumbled.
A sigh escaped her. “I needed that.”
“That I could tell.”
I lowered my hands to cup her ass, and deciding to try my luck, I kneaded the cheeks with my fingers, which prompted her to rock her forehead against my pec, before she whispered, “I can’t believe I did—”
“Does it matter?” I asked, aware I sounded serious. But fuck, I felt it.
“Yeah. It matters.” She blew out a breath then pulled back. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Well, technically, it was you who came over me.”
My smug statement had her narrowing her eyes at me, and I grinned at her, uncaring that she was a lot stronger than me right now and could totally knee me in the balls.
But her gaze just turned into a thin slit before it danced down my body. When she trained those eyes on my dick, I felt it fucking pulse in time to my heartbeat.
“Shit,” she muttered, rubbing a hand over her face. “You’re too sick for this,” she ground out, glaring at me like this was my fault. She compounded it by pointing her finger at me and prodding the air. “You probably can’t even have a boner for like six weeks or something.”
“Well, sorry to disappoint, but the second I saw you that first time I was home, and you bent over and I saw your tits, I had a boner. And when I saw your ass in those shorts you wore the other day?” I whistled. “Boner.”
She scowled. “You’re not supposed to. Everything with the body is six weeks, for fuck’s sake. Giving birth, hearts, I bet even surgery—”
Despite myself, I had to snicker. “Trust me, the dick is willing but the body is weak.” My snicker turned into a rueful smile. “I want to, you’ve no fucking idea how much, but I can’t. Just standing here is hard on me.”
That had her eyes widening again, bigger than when she’d taken in the lost Vermeer, and she instantly hustled to my side and dragged me away from the door and deeper into the room.
When we made it to the bed, she hissed, “This is so impractical.”
Because it was exactly that, I didn’t argue or get mad at her for dissing my personal taste. I just heaved a sigh, and requested, “Help me down?”
With a lot of grunting, we did it. It was easier than when I did it on my own, but she was glowering at me when I lay back, panting, amid the sheets.
“What?” I groused.
“Cover that up,” she retorted, wafting a hand at my nether regions.
I peered down and had to laugh when I saw that the tip of my dick was peeping up above the waistband of my shorts. “Trust me, I had no idea that was even manageable with how painful that was.”
A breath gusted from her lungs, and it made the hair that was clinging to her damp forehead budge a little with its strength. But her eyes were glued to my hand and my dick as I tucked the family jewels away.
It was nice to know she was interested. That was for fucking sure.
She folded her arms over her chest, then murmured, “Do you mind if I sit down? I’m still a little…”
When her words drifted off, I told her, “Sure. Be my guest.”
I expected her to go to the seating area over by the window, never imagining she’d climb onto the mattress with me. But she did. And I cut her a look, surprised and a lot happy that she’d done that.
The position, however, put her in the direct line of sight of the paintings—exactly why I’d had the room laid out like this—so I didn’t take it as much of a compliment. Not when I knew she just wanted the best view of the classical pieces that no one in the general public had seen outside of photographs for at least thirty years.
“How?” she asked simply after five more minutes of just staring at what I found endlessly fascinating.
I’d been staring at these paintings every night before I slept since I’d moved into this place, and I still found it hard to tear my eyes off them.
The only thing that was marginally worth it?
Her.
Watching her come.
Getting to see her unravel in my arms.
I never expected to see that again, so I’d never been able to compare the two, but fuck a duck. Seeing that was a treat worth tens of millions, bar none.
“Did you hear what I asked you earlier?”
She shook her head. “No.”
I smiled a little, amazed I could find anything about this conversation amusing. “Didn’t think so.” I cleared my throat. “Dad was scared I was gay—”
That had her snorting. “You? Gay?”
“Yeah.” I grinned, appreciating that she knew I was anything but.
Just because I liked the fucking arts, had a seat at the goddamn opera, and enjoyed the ballet, did not mean I was gay.
Of course, in my father’s eyes, there was no worse crime.
Rubbing my chin, I muttered, “He shoved me in the Points two years ahead of time because he was scared I was a pussy.”
“You never told me you were twelve when you first enlisted!” Her gasp of outrage was purely motherly, and when I saw hell in her eyes, I knew why before she even ground out, “If your mother dares to fucking judge me over anything Seamus does, I’m going to get in her face, because she should have stopped that in its tracks.”
Usually, I’d have defended Ma until the end of time, but in this, she was right…
Huh.
Was that why she was always different with me? Guilt? Did she know she should have done better? Be a better mom?
There was no point in thinking shit like that, so I sighed. “She thought what she was doing was right at the time.”
“It wasn’t. I don’t give a fuck if Seamus wants to fuck guys, don’t give a shit if he gets turned on by cucumbers! So long as it isn’t illegal and doesn’t hurt someone else, I’m okay with him being who he is.”
There was another warning in that.
And I shrugged. “It’s a different time.”
I genuinely didn’t care if he was gay or not either, which, I’d admit, surprised me. I didn’t think the kid was, not with the way he eyed some of the cheerleaders in the games we’d been watching, so the point was kind of moot. But I agreed.
“Don’t give a shit if it is or isn’t,” she growled, and seeing her all fired up on our kid’s behalf, on the young me’s behalf, did something to me.
Fuck if it didn’t.
I scratched my jaw, a little uneasy with what I was thinking. Feeling. I hadn’t thought talking about this would be so jarring. Not just because of what I’d gone through so young, but because it led to this moment in time.
The way I’d been raised had directly affected the way my son had been raised. It was a parallel I didn’t feel like exploring right now.
“I agree,” I told her softly. “I won’t give you shit over it.”
“Good. I should fucking hope not.”
When she stopped bristling, when her eyes turned back to being dazed as she looked at my loot, I murmured, “I got into some bad circles because of when I enlisted. Older kids, you know? Da was just grateful that they were putting some sense into me, because after I made friends with them, I stopped doodling and doing the shit he thought made me a pansy.”
“Goddamn him,” she hissed, then, when her nails dug into the bedding, I watched her calm herself down before she managed to ask, “I thought you hung around with your brothers.”
“I did. For a while. But we each had our own cliques. It was expected of us. We ran around some, but we’re generals in the Five
Points. It’s how we pick our army, by who we come up with.” I grunted. “Anyway, long story short, I’d been hanging around with guys who were five or six years older than me.”
“Christ, you were a baby hanging around with adults?
I winced. “Yeah. Things derailed when I was fifteen, though.”
“That was when you started seeing Deirdre, isn’t it?”
I shot her a look. “Yeah. Cause and Effect 101.”
“Explain,” she demanded when I grimaced.
“This kid, Jonny Braden, knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy, hooked us up with some guns. Illegal gear, you know? We started doing some stupid shit. Pulling some heists that were definitely not sanctioned by the council. The five of us did it for years. No issue whatsoever.
“Convenience stores here, gas stations there. A couple of pawn shops. Nice pocket money, you know? Then, there was this bigger job. Jewelry store.” I whistled. “It was pure luck we didn’t get caught. What was even luckier was the haul we grabbed.
“I never thought anything of it, we divvied up the goods the way we usually did, no problem. Then, Jonny starts bitching at this other kid, Paul. Paul was the one who knew our fence—the guy who’d sell our stuff. Jonny starts saying he was bullshitting us on the appraisal, that he was screwing us out of our share.” My mind twisted back to that night that had haunted me for decades. “Me and Cillian were just trying to calm shit down, only Paul pulled out his gun, shot Jonny in the fucking head, but not before Jonny whipped his own piece out and hit Paul—right in the fucking gut. One went wide, hitting another one of my crew straight in the chest.
“So, there we were, two kids left, each of us shitting ourselves.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face, because this was not my proudest moment, and I didn’t know how to carry on. When I turned to look at her, saw she wasn’t horrified, it didn’t come as a shock. She’d been raised in the life, after all. Her father wasn’t supposed to say shit around the dinner table, but fuck, everyone drank a little too much from time to time, didn’t they? Said crap they shouldn’t?
“What happened?”
“We went to war with the Haitians that year,” I mused softly, and watched her as the information clicked.
Filthy Dark: A SECOND CHANCE/SECRET BABY, MAFIA ROMANCE (THE FIVE POINTS' MOB COLLECTION Book 3) Page 18
